We entered an open area, more of a central area of the compound; I wasn’t sure about the exact dimensions and style requirements of what a Roman central courtyard looked like, but I imagined this area was much the same. Covered decks surrounded the area on three sides as it was filled with smooth marble steps that delineated the area for different functions. Near the center and off to the side was a pen. An animal pen. What?
“Why do you have an animal here?” My voice came out in a hiss as I debated on whether or not to reload my shotgun in front of everyone to give it the ‘ol’ one-two’ or if it would be more proper to give it the ‘ol’ in-out’ with my sword.
Over the last week or so I’ve found out that much of my past love for animals had come almost exclusively from Duck’s own enthusiasm for them. Sure they had been neat, cute little things, especially baby animals, but the last, no I wasn’t going to check the Tribulation Timer, MENTAL HEALTH DAY, however long had well tempered any lingering affection for any of God’s little monsters.
In fact, seemingly all of my own personal affection had been reforged by the fact that every single animal had been gleefully hounding me for my life. I still don’t want to talk, or even think, about the cat farm from hell and the roaming packs of dogs, or, even better, the wolves.
I’m not sure if all canines were working for demons, or even if there was an official agreement, but I’ll tell you this, I haven’t found hard, irrefutable evidence that the dog-faction isn’t working toward some nefarious, demonic agenda. It was an open secret at this point, a fact, in fact. Now that animals were working together, this secretive agenda was likely coiled to the highest heights of the animal kingdom. Seeing no one else panicked, as they should be, by the fucking animal in their midst, I decided to hold off on my impromptu execution.
That didn’t change that it was made incredibly worse by the fact that among any animal I’d had the displeasure of encountering before the apocalypse, worst among them, were llamas. If you haven’t guessed, Duck liked boutique animal farms. In fact, I’ve been to more of them than any 10 men should have ever been forced to attend.
Besides her religion thing, this was a close contender for second-most-difficult-to-love aspect of her. Though she might have been right about the religion thing, she was sorely mistaken about her love for animals.
I’d had the displeasure of visiting a llama farm once, in the desert, and even before the demonic animal-illuminati agenda had been rolled out, they were shitty temperamental things, at best. I couldn’t imagine they had gotten any nicer in the apocalypse.
I tuned it out. No need to hear the vulgar, honied lies of animal-kind. I was pretty sure the gray colored shithead was a guy llama.
“Sir Knight? Are you still with us?”
I had spent too much time alone, well technically it hadn’t been that much time and considering the animals I’ve been forced to listen to this entire time, I hadn’t been truly alone, not even a little bit. I pulled myself back from the brink of internal monologuing, my blade started to clear its sheath, “yeah, so do you just want me to kill it?”
That seemed to have struck some kind of nerve with people here… “or something?” My blade slowly settled back into its sheath. Right, I had decided to not execute it. Habits die hard, like this llama should. Whatever.
“Yes, well since you’ve said that you’ve chosen the quite rare, ‘Speaks with Animals’ skill, a few of the ladies want to know if it’s safe-”
“Wait, none of you have that Skill?”
A few people snapped their fingers in response and brought out fire or lightning, some water, others just shook their heads. I wasn’t quite sure what ‘not-magic’ had to do with Speaking with Animals, but I didn’t ask.
One gentleman provided some more context, “Mrs. Alreafa did, in fact, select it but her terrified Pookie seems to have accidentally… killed her.”
There was silence at that and a few mournful sounds.
“Accidentally?!” I tried to say it casually but I knew I failed when a woman, I won’t impugn her appearance more than God already had, came to the rescue.
“The poor pupper was terrified by the changes, like we all were!” More nodding from the group, “and she must have activated Pookie’s prey drive!”
Prey drive. “Is this Pookie a gentle, little ‘hippo’ by chance?”
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She lit up and grinned openly, teeth stained red by far too much Pinot noirs.
“Ah.” A huge, wildly aggressive, marginally socialized, shit-pit bull. Likely with an “abusive former owner”. And now, hopped up on apocalypse steroids. Fantastic. Thank God the children were gone. Though the cut-off being age 20 was absolute bullshit.
Before I could inquire as to the location of this sweet, gentle, Pookie, and reactivate both of our prey-drives in a man v. animal deathmatch, the not-really-but-totally-looking-like-a-cult Leader stepped back in. ‘Morrigan’, right. Was that his first name? Douche.
“So like we were saying, you’ve chosen the quite uncommon skill, ‘Speaks with Animals’, a few of the ladies want to know if it’s safe to ‘pet’ the llama.”
I literally had to pick up my jaw at this one. A tiny little yappy dog? Probably fine, at least most of the time, just don’t pass out drunk where it can reach your throat. A cat? Hell no, too agile, too malicious, too snotty. A fucking llama? These people were absolutely out of their minds. They were all absolutely insane if they, or anyone they knew, wanted to interact with a llama at any distance that wasn’t separated by something sharp and pointy, and preferably made of metal. Or lead-based and traveling at excessive velocity.
I was holding a wine glass that had somehow gotten into my hand. I debated dropping my shotgun to receive the next proffered personal bottle of wine, but decided to just trade the glass for the bottle. I pinched in some salt from the biosalt container in my fanny pack and took a long plug. Fuck classy shit. My second thought was ‘Whatever, their funeral’. I nodded and air-cheered the Cult Leader with my bottle.
“Let’s do it.”
Four “ladies”, and by ladies I mean middle-aged, wastie white girls, each with their own wine bottle and never-leaves-their-hand-for-appearances-only wine glasses stumbled forward. For all intents, appearing to be entirely unaware of the weapons-grade, unhinged llama right next to them. Insane, OR drunk on a multi-day-bender. Probably a bit of both.
Morrigan snapped his fingers and a burst of flame lit his cigar. Damn, ‘Not-Prometheus’ Affinity would have been awesome to get. Wait. ‘Not-magic’ magic. ‘Not Prometheus’... was Prometheus an actual… thing? Person? Nope. Not doing that right now.
He nodded at me and I grimly returned it.
I pointed to the first woman then looked at the four-legged hellion “What do you think about this lady?”
It wasn’t finished,
I waved off the first woman, she looked ready to protest but her equally drunk husband seemed to possess some sort of survival instinct that kicked in sometime after I repeated the first half of what the creature had said.
“What about her?” I pointed to the next lady.
I waved her off, unwilling to elaborate.
I already knew the next answer but it seemed that my animal-whispering was the night’s entertainment, so I pressed on and pointed to the third woman, asking the same question. I sampled some of the meat and cheeses laid out, in what was presumably, dinner. I may have stuffed my mouth that took an awkward amount of time to clear. Well, awkward for them. They wanted to pet a llama, so who was the dumbass here?
I did a double take at that and people didn’t miss it, probably the fact that I was actively choking on a salami-cheese-cracker combination brought some extra attention to it. There was no time to clarify as there were calls for me to tell them what ‘he said’.
I cleared my throat and washed it down by plugged from my bottle before I repeated what the llama had said to open cheers, then in a state of half-shocked rote repeated the llama’s next words loud enough for everyone to hear, “a morsel he wouldn’t mind giving a kiss…?”
She was already running toward the llama, arms outstretched, sloshing wine everywhere before I could finish shouting the last part, “with his teeth! A KISS WITH HIS TEETH!”
It seemed like it got through, but just a moment too late, and thus, entirely too late as the llama’s head snapped forward and bit off half of the lady’s face in the next instant.
I pulled again, deeper this time and straight from the bottle to quell my twisting stomach as I looked through her non-existent cheek straight into her mouth. The feeling was already locked in intense combat with the deep satisfaction of I fucking told you so.
Morrigan was laughing his ass off and the surrounding crowd soon got into it as they prodded the woman back toward the demonic llama as she shrieked while still missing half of her face. Apparently she wasn’t very popular, or based on the cheering, was very popular in the way an unarmed gladiator was right before animals ripped them apart at the bottom of a sandy pit.
It kept biting her over and over before the crowd, one, two, three, heaved her into the pen. The llama kicked her as she tried to crawl away. I’d have to watch out for that kick when I was killing the fucking thing. It could kick sideways, not just backwards like a horse.
I felt the twinge in my chest. Shit, this was definitely some twisted apocalypse-shit, even if any one of those ladies would have absolutely had it coming. Llama-loving filth as far as I was concerned. There was no way I was going to stay the night if I could help it.
The Cult leader was now softly chuckling at my elbow, “Sir Knight, wonderful entertainment you’ve provided, surely you will stay the night?”
“Sure.” Shit. I mashed a heap of salami and cheese into my mouth in lue of saying more words.